Jack the Young Canoeman: An Eastern Boy's Voyage in a Chinook Canoe

by George Bird Grinnell

"Oh!" said Jack, "try and kill some of them please. I have never seen either bird. I know the oyster catcher of the Atlantic coast, for I have seen several that were killed on Long Island. I should like to have some of these birds in my hand."

Fannin got his gun ready and presently fired both barrels at the birds, and in a few moments Jack was admiring them, and comparing each sort with its corresponding species of the Atlantic coast. Before the gun was fired, he had noticed that the oyster catchers acted very much like those he had seen on Long Island. They had the same sharp whistle and ran along the shore in the same way; but these in his hand were entirely black, while those that he had seen in the East were brownish with much white, and only a little black.

During the day they saw many old squaw ducks, which Jack knew in the East only as winter birds.

About the middle of the afternoon the wind rose again, and began to blow so violently that it was necessary to go ashore and camp. At the point where they landed, deer seemed to be plenty, and the beach was dotted in many places with their tracks, made during the day. The recent rains, however, had made the underbrush quite wet, and as there was plenty of fresh meat in camp, there seemed no special reason for hunting.

During the night a deer passed along the beach near the tent, and when he had come close to the place where Charlie had made his bed, the animal saw the tent or smelt its occupants, stopped and stood for a while, and then jumped over Charlie, running off with long bounds, into the forest.

The next morning the wind still blew hard, and it was uncertain whether the party could get away or not. The two Indians therefore asked permission to hunt, and Fannin loaned his rifle to Jimmie. An hour or two later Hamset returned without anything; but a little later Jimmie came in with a broad grin on his face, his clothes in tatters. He was soaked to the skin, but in a high state of delight, for he had killed a deer—his first. He was quite exhausted, for he had carried the animal quite a long way through the woods down to the beach, where he had left it, unable to bring it farther. Fannin and Charlie at once went off to get it; and while they were gone, the boy, in a mixture of Chinook, English, and signs, told Hugh and Jack the story of his hunt. He had gone a long way through the forest, but at last had seen a deer feeding, and crept up close to it. It had looked at him. He had fired twice at it, the last time striking it in the throat and breaking its neck, and it had fallen dead. He ended his account with a loud shout of laughter and the words: "Hai-asmowitch (big deer), me kill." Later in the day he confided to Fannin the information that "the hearts of his friends were very good toward him because he had killed a deer that was big and fat."

As they coasted along the shore that day they saw a blue grouse sitting on a rock, on a small island, and landing found about a dozen full-grown birds. The shot-gun accounted for four or five of them, and Jack and Hugh shot the heads off several more that took refuge in the branches of the trees. Food, therefore, was now plenty.

As they were passing near the mouth of the Hotham Sound, and close to the shores of Hardy and Nelson Islands, the remarkable Twin Falls, just within the entrance of the Sound, came into view. They seemed so attractive that it was decided to visit them on their return trip. On rounding a point on the shore of Hardy Island, two moving objects, on a low seaweed-covered point half a mile ahead, were seen. For a time they puzzled Indians and white men alike. They were not deer, for they were too low; nor bears, for the color was not right; nor seals, for they had neither the shape nor the movements of those animals. So there was much guessing at random as to what they were. But at last, when the canoe had come close enough for the creatures to be seen distinctly, white men and Indians made them out to be eagles. They were young birds, so young and inexperienced, in fact, that they permitted the canoe to approach within fifty feet of them without moving from their places, and when at last they did consent to disturb themselves the canoe was within thirty or forty feet of them. Then one flew to a pine, a few yards distant, while the other hopped on a log six feet from where he had been sitting, and surveyed the canoe with the utmost indifference. Though full-grown they had probably never seen white men before. They had been feeding on a dog-fish, which lay there among the seaweed, still breathing and writhing, although the birds had torn a great hole in its side.

That night camp was made on Nelson Island. It rained very hard, and everything became wet. There was a fine chance for grumbling at the weather if they wanted to, but these were old travellers, and accustomed to meet with philosophy whatever fortune sent them in the way of weather and discomfort. Besides this, they were getting used to rain, for some had fallen every day since they had reached the head of Bute Inlet. The next day they would enter Jervis Inlet, of whose beauties they had heard so much that they thought it would be almost as wonderful as Bute. A study of the Admiralty charts, with which Fannin had provided himself before leaving Victoria, and which were carried in a tin case in the provision chest, seemed to confirm all that they had heard of Jervis; and it was with anxious hearts and earnest hopes for good weather that the party went to bed that night.